American composer and concert pianist Robert DeGaetano
apparently keeps a low profile. Since his stage debut in the mid Seventies,
he's made only a handful of recordings. One cannot count this against his piano
playing, however, because he is quite gifted, at least as evidenced by the
virtuosic manner in which he performs the two works on this disc.

The first movement of DeGaetano's Piano ConcertoNo. 1, Op.
3 starts out with all the frills of a late Romantic piece and then turns more
rambunctious early on. It offers a little something for everyone, as if
DeGaetano couldn't quite make up his mind if he wanted to go for the pure
melodies and harmonies of the nineteenth century or the dissonance of the mid
twentieth century. So we hear a bit of both worlds, along with a solid forward
momentum and rhythmic drive. Then, along in the midst of the piece we hear some
lush Hollywood tunes emerge, and you'd think it was the 1940's all over again.
While it's certainly fun, ending in a blaze of glory, it's kind of a hodgepodge
of fun, so one has to prepare for it.

Next we get a second movement entirely different, made up
almost entirely of percussive effects, very playful, with the piano's entrance
so late we wonder if it's ever going to show up at all. Nevertheless, it's a
fascinating passage. Mr. DeGaetano says his music will often sound atonal, but
that's "only because there are so many tonal passages being played
together, each offering their own information. It's these varied resonances
that interest me because they correspond to our contemporary world." Fair
enough.

The third movement Adagio
takes us back into the world of the nineteenth century, very soft and dreamy
and atmospheric. In the accompanying documentary, he says it represents a
striving for strong personal relationships. After that, we get a finale (yes,
it's a four-movement concerto) of overt passion and power that seems borrowed
from Charles Ives in its hinted musical references and, again, eccentric
rhythmic thrust. The whole work makes a fascinating contrast with the coupled
Chopin piano concerto, which leaves no doubt where it's coming from.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 when he was only nineteen
years old, yet it has become one of the staples of the basic classical
repertoire. Some critics have argued that it isn't much of a concerto at all,
that the piano is so dominant, it is simply another solo piano piece with some
reluctant orchestral accompaniment thrown in. That hasn't hurt its popularity, though,
and you'll find recordings of it by practically every major pianist in the
world.

DeGaetano's way with it is more vigorous than most, with
Maestro John Yaffé and his Moravian Philharmonic players going along full bore.
DeGaetano makes a grand statement, in any case, and the entire affair sounds
less sentimentalized (ironically, less Romanticized) than most accounts. It's a
refreshingly personal, robust interpretation of a familiar piece of music.

Producer Vit Muzik and engineer Zdenek Slavotinek recorded
the music at Reduta Hall, Olomouc, Czech Republic in September 2012. The sound
is quite burly and fairly close. The piano appears well embedded within the
orchestral context and spread somewhat wide across the stage. The midrange is a
bit veiled, although detailing is still adequate, and the lower
treble can be a tad forward. The dynamics, especially those of the piano, come
through well enough, so the overall effect is somewhat pop oriented and should
complement most mid-fi systems nicely. Audiophiles might want something a tad
more transparent, with greater air, space, and orchestral depth, but that's
another story.

The set also includes a DVD containing the making-of
documentary “Journey of Passion.” It’s just over sixteen minutes long, and
DeGaetano’s narration provides some reflections on his Piano Concerto and his recording of it, among other things.

Natalia Lavrova and Vassily Primakov are award-winning
Russian concert pianists whose friendship and musical collaboration has led
them to form their own record company, LP Classics, of which the present
recording is their second release. Presumably “LP” stands for Lavrova-Primakov,
but back in the old days it stood for “long-playing.” Maybe we can think of it
as meaning “lovely performance,” certainly a good description of their
collaborative effort on this four-hand piano recital.

The first item on the extremely varied program is Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit (“The Ox on the
Roof: The Nothing-Doing Bar”), Op. 58 by French composer Darius Milhaud
(1892-1970). It’s a delightfully bizarre, satiric work that Milhaud based on a
number of Brazilian choro, generally quick, festive tunes full of counterpoint
rhythms. Le Boeuf runs merrily along
with a series of wholly charming melodies, almost all of them with up-tempo
beats that have one tapping along. More important, the pianists seem totally in
accord with one another, despite switching parts several times. Their playing
is quite spectacular at times.

Next up is the Grand
Sonata for Piano Four Hands in F Minor, Op. 178 by Czech-born Austrian composer,
teacher, and pianist Carl Czerny (1791-1857), a fellow noted for his piano
exercises. Czerny actually wrote piano pieces for four, six, and eight hands,
so this one is among his less-ambitious works. I tease. The track makes a good
change of pace, much more serious in a dignified, old-fashioned manner. Yet
given the virtuosic playing of Ms. Lavrova and Mr. Primakov, it sounds spirited
and joyous, Lavrova in the primary piano part, Primakov the secondary. Czerny
structured the piece in four movements, the first quite energetic; the second,
slow section most delicate and ethereal; the Scherzo merry yet sensitive; and the Finale slightly nervous, troubled, increasing in intensity, and
ending on a strongly optimistic note. The pianists have a good time with it,
showing off their pianistic skills in an imposing display of musical
gymnastics.

After that is Gazebo
Dances for Piano Four Hands by American composer and teacher John
Corigliano (b. 1938). Corigliano's four dances go from an overture to a waltz
to an adagio to a tarantella and offer the pianists another fine vehicle for
their impeccable showmanship. Of course, all four dances come with Corigliano's
surprises, so don't expect anything run-of-the-mill here, either in the music
or the playing.

The album concludes with the Fantasie in F Minor for Piano Four Hands, D.940 by Austrian
composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Written in 1828 and among the composer’s
final works, the Fantasie is probably
the most-important piece on the program. With Schubert we enter an entirely
different musical world altogether, one filled with elegance and grace, which
is exactly what Lavrova and Primakov provide, this time with Mr. Primakov
taking the primary part. There is a thoughtful perception and insightful
response to the playing that makes their interaction sublime.

With performing standards of the highest order and music
of color and variety, the album should provide a refreshing listening
experience for almost anyone, no matter one's tastes.

Producer, recordist, editor, and mastering engineer
Charlie Post made the album in August 2012 at the Adelphi University Performing
Arts Center’s Concert Hall, Garden City, New York. Here, we find a comfortable,
spacious, room-filling piano sound, a little wider than a piano might really
sound live but certainly ringing forth with a beautiful tone and clarity. It's
all rich and warm and dynamic, just as we'd want a piano to sound, with a
pleasantly sonorous ambient glow.

Oberlin Music
Artists Perform Works by Ravel in Exclusive NYC Engagement at SubCulture

The November 3 concert celebrates the release of Ravel: Intimate Masterpieces, a new
album created by Oberlin Conservatory faculty harpist Yolanda Kondonassis,
featuring acclaimed performers with strong ties to Oberlin. The November 3rd
concert is at 7 p.m. and the purchase of a ticket includes a Ravel CD.

The evocative music of Maurice Ravel and the diverse
talents of the Oberlin Conservatory’s celebrated alumni, faculty, and friends
will take center stage for a performance of chamber works on November 3 at
SubCulture, NYC.

The concert is a celebration of Ravel: Intimate Masterpieces, a new release by Oberlin Music, the
commercial label of the Oberlin Conservatory. Available now through download on
iTunes, the album will be available on CD October 29.

The performance at SubCulture will showcase the musicians
who took part in the album’s creation: Oberlin faculty members Yolanda
Kondonassis (harp), Alexa Still (flute), and Richard Hawkins (clarinet); alumni
soprano Ellie Dehn and pianist Spencer Myer; and the Jupiter Quartet, Oberlin’s
artists in residence, featuring alumni violist Liz Freivogel.

Tickets for Ravel:
Intimate Masterpieces in concert are $30, available by calling 212-533-5470
or by visiting www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/388133. Each ticket includes a
copy of the CD. Showtime is 7 p.m. Sunday, November 3, at SubCulture (45
Bleecker Street, downstairs) in New York City.

--Amanda Sweet, BuckleSweet Media

Universal Music
Classics Launches “Yellow Lounge” in America This Fall

The classics-meet-club environment showcases vibrant live
performances. “Yellow Lounge” will be
at Sonos Studio, Los Angeles, November 5; at Le Poisson Rouge, New York City,
November 10; at City Winery, Chicago, November 11; and at YoungArts, Miami,
November 22.

Originally born out of the Berlin/European club scene,
“Yellow Lounge” is a classics-meets-club environment; its mission to present a
new generation of vibrant artists tied to the classical tradition who break
musical and cultural boundaries, in visually innovative and alternative spaces.
With sold-out events already under its belt all over the world including
London, Amsterdam, Vienna and Seoul, Yellow Lounge is now poised for its
American launch. Yellow Lounge kicks off in major cities across America in
November at eclectic venues including The Sonos Studio in Los Angeles (11/5),
Le Poisson Rouge in New York City (11/10), City Winery in Chicago (11/11) and
at the National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) in Miami (11/22). Yellow
Lounge at YoungArts will inaugurate a new lounge/space designed by Frank Gehry
as part of YoungArts’ new multidisciplinary arts campus.

Universal Music Classics has partnered with various
like-minded presenters who share the common goal of bringing
"classics" to a younger, wider and energized audience. Presenting
partners of Yellow Lounge include The Sonos Studio in Los Angeles, WFMT Radio
and City Winery in Chicago, Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, and the National
YoungArts Foundation with Classical South Florida Radio 89.7 in Miami. All
shows are open to the public with ticket prices of $20 or less, and will
feature a guest DJ.

New York City’s Yellow Lounge will host banjoist Béla
Fleck – winner of 15 Grammy Awards and nominated in more categories than any
other artist in Grammy history. His most recent recording - his debut as
composer-performer and first for Deutsche Grammophon/Mercury Classics --The Impostor, was released in August.
The album showcases Fleck’s title concerto for banjo and symphony orchestra, as
well as “Night Flight Over Water” for banjo and string quartet. For The Impostor concerto, the banjoist
teamed with conductor Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony (who
commissioned the work); for Night Flight Over Water, a work commissioned by
Butler University, Fleck partnered with genre-bending quartet Brooklyn Rider.
Brooklyn Rider will join Fleck on stage at Yellow Lounge in New York City as
well.

Brooklyn Rider has been credited for “re-creating the
300-year-old form of the string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century
ensemble” by NPR. Their most current
album – A Walking Fire - was released
in April on DG/Mercury Classics, and co-branded with In a Circle, the imprint
started by Brooklyn Rider violinist Johnny Galdnelsman in 2008. The New York Times said, “Brooklyn Rider
stands out for its consistent refinement, globe-spanning stylistic range,
do-it-yourself gumption and integration of standard repertory works into the
mix.” A Walking Fire features a seminal string quartet by Béla Bartók,
alongside new works by contemporary Russian-American composer Lev “Ljova”
Zhurbin and Brooklyn Rider’s Colin Jacobsen.

--Olga Makrias, Universal Music Classics

Jazz and Classical
Nutcrackers “Duke It Out” December 7

Music Institute of Chicago welcomes families for
Music/Dance Concert and Instrument Petting Zoo.

The Music Institute of Chicago welcomes families for “Duke
It Out,” a concert showcasing both traditional and jazz-inflected versions of The Nutcracker Suite, Saturday, December
7 at 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m., preceded by an open house at 9 a.m., at Nichols
Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston.

Duke it Out pairs the classical (Tchaikovsky) and jazz
(Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn, transcription by James Stephenson) versions of
the holiday favorite, performed by Music Institute Ensembles-in-Residence Axiom
Brass and Quintet Attacca. Providing a visual illustration of the two musical
versions are dance students, ages eight to 18, from Foster Dance Company, the
performance ensemble of Foster Dance Studios, and Chicago-area professional
dancers, totaling approximately 60 dancers. Choreography is by Ronn Stewart,
Sarah Goldstone and Phil Brooks.

This morning of music for families, which is sponsored by
First Bank & Trust, begins at 9 a.m. with an open house in the Nichols
Concert Hall lobby. Kids can enjoy playing a variety of instruments at the
Music Institute Instrument Petting Zoo, parents can talk with faculty and
staff, and everyone can take advantage of special discounts on lessons and
classes.

The Music Institute of Chicago’s family open house (9
a.m.) and Duke It Out (two performances: 10 a.m. and 11:45 a.m.) take place
Saturday, December 7 at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Avenue, Evanston.
Tickets are $5 per person, available at brownpapertickets.com/event/492630 or
847.905.1500 ext. 108. For more information visit musicinst.org.

--Jill Chukerman, JAC Communications

American Bach
Soloists to Release New CD of Handel’s Laudate
pueri Dominum Featuring Mary Wilson on December 3, 2013

Beloved ABS collaborator sings a dazzling program that
includes Handel’s Silete venti and Gloria.

The American Bach Soloists are pleased to announce the
imminent release of "Handel: Laudate pueri Dominum” featuring Mary Wilson.
ABS music director Jeffrey Thomas directs the orchestra of ABS—“some of the
greatest period-instrument players in the world” (San Francisco Classical
Voice) and one of their most cherished collaborators, the sensational American
coloratura soprano Mary Wilson, in a program of bravura works by George
Frideric Handel.

"Handel: Laudate pueri Dominum" features three
challenging works for soprano and chamber ensemble that place extraordinary
demands of virtuosity and expressiveness on soloist and orchestra alike.
Written in 1707 when the composer was living in Italy, “Laudate pueri Dominum”
is a startling example of Handel’s ability to absorb and make use of foreign
traditions to fuel his unique vision and compositional voice. The psalm setting
is a veritable catalogue of Italian musical forms, all masterfully employed by
Handel. The Gloria for coloratura
voice, two violins, and basso continuo is also from Handel’s early period.
Discovered in 2001, this exquisite liturgical work is at times expansive and
elegant, but its vigorous sections for the soprano soloist are what often amaze
hearers. The composer’s thrilling virtuoso motet Silete venti (“Silence, ye winds”) comes from later in Handel’s
career when he was living in London and writing operas for the lyric stage.
Opening with what appears to be a typical French ouverture, the soprano makes
her entrance in the work by bidding the winds—elemental and instrumental—to be
silent so her Christian soul can peacefully enjoy its repose. In May 2013,
Wilson’s performances of Silete venti
with ABS astonished audiences with the breathtaking ease and precision of her
singing. Maestro Thomas was commended for programming the overlooked gem with
an ideal interpreter like Wilson: “Silete
venti is a wonderful work, and the fact that it is a misfit for modern-day
concert programs makes its absence from the repertoire a shame. Thank goodness
for ABS!” (SFCV)

"Handel: Laudate pueri Dominum" featuring Mary
Wilson is the latest recording to join ABS’s critically lauded discography of
nineteen titles, including a six-volume series of cantatas by J.S. Bach, full
recordings of the St. Matthew Passion
and Mass in B Minor, and recordings
concentrating on the music of Corelli, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schütz. Handel: Laudate pueri Dominum featuring
Mary Wilson will be released nationally December 3 and available for pre-sale
on iTunes on November 15.

Richard Tucker Award-winners Stephen Costello and Ailyn
Pérez – dubbed “America’s fastest-rising husband-and-wife opera stars”
(Associated Press) – look forward to collaborating on their first album
together: a recording of romantic love duets by Verdi, Puccini, Bernstein, and
others, to be recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Patrick Summers’s
leadership in December. The album is slated for release in spring 2014, and it
will be the couple’s first release as exclusive recording artists for Warner
Classics.

Pérez explains: “Given our great love for our art and each
other, I’m really looking forward to joining our voices in some of my favorite
roles and operatic duets.”

Costello adds: “To be on a label for which so many
incredible artists have recorded is a huge honor. I am also honored to share
this album with two great artists – my wife, Ailyn Pérez, and Maestro Patrick
Summers. I am truly humbled!”

Described by Vanity
Fair as “a match made in verismo heaven,” theirs is a love story that is
the stuff of opera itself. The young American soprano and tenor met at
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, where an onstage romance in Puccini’s
most beloved opera kindled the flames of a real-life passion. This season,
Pérez and Costello appear in performance together across the globe, headlining
in La traviata in London, Berlin, Hamburg, and San Francisco, and giving
concerts in New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

They are the only married couple to boast having two
prestigious Richard Tucker Awards on the mantelpiece: Costello took home the
“Heisman Trophy of opera” in 2009 and Pérez won in 2012, becoming the first
Hispanic singer to do so in the award’s history. When they performed together
at the 2012 Richard Tucker Gala, which was broadcast nationally in the U.S. and
is still available for on-demand streaming, the New York Times’s Anthony Tommasini admired their “palpable
chemistry.”

--Andrew Ousley, Warner Classics

Acclaimed Early
Music Ensemble Apollo’s Fire Returns to Cal Performances on Saturday, November
9 at 8:00 p.m. in First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA

A pre-performance talk with music director Jeannette
Sorrell will be held Saturday, November 9 at 7:00 p.m. in First Congregational
Church.

Baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire returns to Cal Performances
with its “vibrant, life—affirming approach to early music” (BBC Music Magazine)
for an evening of J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg
ConcertosNos. 3, 4, and 5, as well as Johann David Heinichen’s Dresden Concerti on Saturday, November 9 at 8:00 p.m. in First
Congregational Church. Led and founded by dynamic conductor, music director,
and harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell, Cleveland-based Apollo’s Fire is “a
superb ensemble that pairs vigor with finesse, enlisting period instruments to
play baroque fare in a rigorously informed style” (The Washington Post).

Apollo’s Fire was founded in 1992 by Jeannette Sorrell.
She studied conducting under Robert Spano, Roger Norrington, and Leonard
Bernstein, and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. Sorrell sought to bring together a group of
artists who enjoyed drama and rhetoric. She was also inspired by the baroque
ideal that music should evoke passion from its listeners. Since its founding, Apollo’s Fire has become
a worldwide phenomenon and has performed at such illustrious venues as London’s
Wigmore Hall, Madrid’s Royal Theatre, and Bordeaux’s Grand Théàtre de l’Opéra.
The ensemble has received many awards, including the 1995 Noah Greenberg Award
from the American Musicological Society and the 1998 Northern Ohio Live Achievement
Award for Classical Music. Apollo’s Fire has released 20 CDs with the British
label AVIE. The most recent of their recordings, Sacrum Mysterius: A Celtic Christmas Vespers, debuted at No. 11 on
the classical Billboard Chart in December 2012.

Ticket information:

Tickets for Apollo’s Fire on Saturday, November 9, at 8:00
p.m. in First Congregational Church are $42.00 and are subject to change.
Half-price tickets are available for UC Berkeley students. Tickets are
available through the Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall; at (510) 642-9988; at
www.calperformances.org; and at the door. For more information about discounts,
go to www.calperformances.org/buy/discounts.php.

Meyer Sound, world leaders in acoustic research and audio
engineering, announces a new recording venture with the debut release of “as
long as there are songs,” a collection of American popular music performed by
legendary American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and pianist Craig Terry.

Stephanie Blythe, Craig Terry and audio pioneer John Meyer
set out to create a dramatically different listening experience in which
audiences have an exceptionally accurate sense of being “in the room” at a live
performance. This recording is as authentic to the original performance as is
possible with today’s recording technology – a natural, unprocessed sound which
stands in stark contrast to the high compression and limited bandwidth
techniques used on nearly all standard commercial recording releases. Listeners
will hear the full extent of the artists’ performance as this recording
incorporates the full breadth of dynamic range, articulation, ensemble, sound
tone and expression.

Since the mid 70s with the recording of “Gould conducts
Gould,” John Meyer has been devoted to building audio technology that
faithfully reproduces and delivers sound of the highest quality to audiences
worldwide. His 2007 recording of Zakir Hussain’s “Golden Strings of the Sarode”
was nominated for a Grammy. Meyer Sound’s patented cutting-edge Constellation
acoustic system enabled the creation of a custom acoustic space for the
recording, ironically, one in which Blythe and Terry could record “old school”
in the same room without close-field microphones or headphones.

Full takes were recorded natively at 24/96 resolution
capturing the energy and passion of the artists performing as if for a live
audience. In yet another departure from conventional contemporary vocal
recording, engineer John Pellowe used no post-process filtering or compression
during either the capture nor mastering process. Blythe and Terry’s musical
artistry allowed producer Evans Mirageas to incorporate a third of the songs as
entire, unedited takes and make only minimal edits to the remainder of the
material.

Recorded on site at Meyer Sound’s Pearson Theatre in
Berkeley, CA in December 2012, the recording is now available on innova
Recordings.

--Karen Ames Communications

Cantus: Song of a
Czech: Dvorák and Janácek for Men’s Voices

On October 29th, the acclaimed nine-member men's vocal
ensemble Cantus will release their 16th studio recording, Song of a Czech:
Dvorák and Janácek for Men’s Voices. Produced by the Grammy-winning team of
Blanton Alspaugh and John Newton from Soundmirror, Song of a Czech focuses on the works of Antonín Dvorák and Leoš
Janácek, two of the giants of Czech musical history who were also great
personal friends.

Both composers wrote music for male chorus, taking similar
inspiration from folksongs of their native lands of Bohemia and Moravia, and
from all over Eastern Europe. Janácek dedicated his “Four Male Partsongs” to
Dvorák, who dubbed them "a gift with great promise, and in these times a
truly special one.” These lifelong musical conversations between two of the
most beloved Czech composers undoubtedly played an integral role in shaping the
national choral sound, and even the development of European choral music in the
20th century.

With this new recording of repertoire by these “Bohemian
brothers,” Cantus explores literature rarely heard outside of Eastern Europe,
lending their trademark warmth, blend and exemplary musicianship to these
fascinating and rarely recorded treasures of the choral canon.

About Cantus

Acclaimed as “the premier men’s vocal ensemble in the
United States” (Fanfare), Cantus is known world-wide for its engaging
performances of music ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century. The Washington Post has hailed the
ensemble’s sound as having both “exalting finesse” and “expressive power” and
refers to the “spontaneous grace” of its music making. As one of the country’s
only two full-time vocal ensembles, Cantus has grown to prominence with its
distinctive approach to creating music. Working without a conductor, the
members of Cantus rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing
to the entirety of the artistic process. To learn more about Cantus and see
complete touring information, please visit: http://www.cantussings.org/.

Remarkably, as of this writing the Silk Road Ensemble has
been in business for some fifteen years.
How is that possible? I just reviewed their first album only...some
fifteen years ago. Anyway, as you probably know, and quoting from their Web
site, “Inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Silk Road, the
Silk Road Project is a catalyst promoting innovation and learning through the
arts. Our vision is to connect the world’s neighborhoods by bringing together
artists and audiences around the globe.”

They are “an internationally minded performing arts
nonprofit with cultural and educational missions to promote innovation and
learning through the arts. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded the Project in 1998 taking
inspiration from the historical Silk Road trading routes and using the Silk
Road as a modern metaphor for sharing and learning across cultures, art forms
and disciplines.”

Further, “The Silk Road Ensemble draws together
distinguished performers and composers from more than 20 countries in Asia,
Europe and the Americas. Since the Ensemble formed under the artistic direction
of Yo-Yo Ma in 2000, these innovative artists have eagerly explored
contemporary musical crossroads. Their approach is experimental and democratic,
founded on collaboration and risk taking, on continual learning and sharing.
Members explore and celebrate the multiplicity of approaches to music from
around the world. They also develop new repertoire that responds to the
multicultural reality of our global society.”

Obviously, the program of A Playlist Without Borders contains varied items representing
varied countries and cultures. There are seven items involved, totaling a
healthy seventeen tracks and seventy-six minutes of music. You may not like all
of it, but there’s a little something in here for everyone.

The first selection is one of the longest, "Playlist
for an Extreme Occasion," an eight-movement piece by jazz pianist and
composer Vijay Lyer. It begins with a vibrant rhythmic thrust and then moves on
to a number of other dance forms and variations. Lyer says he wanted the music
"to connect with audiences in any situation and communicate a real joy in
creating music in the moment." Thus, there is a sort of infectious
improvisational jazz style to the largely up-tempo tunes. They're easy to like.

"Night Thoughts" by Wu Man uses several
percussive and wind instruments to produce a distinctively airy and meditative
sound. "Saidi Swing" by Shane Shanahan uses a traditional Arabic
rhythm that is quite invigorating. And so it goes through the rest of the
tracks, with traditional Turkish, Iranian, Gypsy, and even Cajun music.

The final number on the program, called "Briel,"
is by avant-garde American composer John Zorn. It's one movement from his
longer "Book of Angels," and while it is hardly what we might call
"classical," it has a definitely cinematic feel to it, beginning in a
kind of Native American mode and then turning to any number of other influences
including Jewish klezmer and conventional jazz. It is probably the most joyous
track on the album. I'd liked to have heard more of it.

The Silk Road Project, Inc. made the recording for Sony
Masterworks at Futura Studios, Roslindale, Massachusetts in March 2013. The
sound is relatively close and well delineated, but not exactly natural in terms
of width or depth. It's a little more pop oriented than that. Still, the
definition is fine, without being forward or aggressive, and there is a
pleasantly warm acoustic bloom around the instruments. Frequency response,
dynamic range, and transient impact seem adequate to the occasion.

I confess I had
never heard conductor Pierre Monteux’s Tchaikovsky Fourth before I got this disc a few years ago, nor did I even know
he had recorded it. To my knowledge it has never appeared in RCA’s “Living
Stereo” series, only in an early regular edition. I suspect, however, that
Monteux recorded it at the same time he did the Tchaikovsky Fifth and Sixth, recordings I have at least heard of although, again, never
listened to. The upshot is that I had no regular Monteux recording with which
to compare this JVC premium remastering. Let me just say it’s pretty good.

Tchaikovsky’s Fourth is one of those warhorses that
has never struck me as being all that worthy of its fame. The first two
movements, frankly, have always left me unimpressed. The Scherzo, nevertheless, is quite lively and charming, and the Finale is everything one buys a
high-priced stereo system to reproduce. This final movement is grand and
exciting, full of bombast and brilliance in equal measure. And Monteux, whom I
generally think of as a most-refined conductor specializing in the French
impressionist repertoire, comes through splendidly, maybe not making the first
two movements any more tolerable for me than anyone else but driving through
the Finale with rousing vigor and
spirit. Interestingly, my heretofore favorite recording of the Fourth has been Haitink’s 1970’s reading
with the Concertgebouw on Philips, and Monteux’s timings are almost exactly the
same as Haitink’s. With the exception of the sound quality, the two
interpretations could be brothers, or close cousins at the least.

The sonic quality of
this JVC XRCD is about what one would expect from a painstaking transfer of an
RCA recording from the late Fifties (this one recorded in 1959). The RCA
engineers were doing some of their best work with the Chicago Symphony at the
time, and by comparison the Boston acoustics often produced a brighter, thinner
sound than their Chicago counterparts. There is no exception here, the Boston
recording being a bit top-heavy; and while producing a wonderfully extended
high-end for triangles and symbols, it tends to render violins a mite hard and
forward. Bass could also have been deeper. That said, the audio quality is
nevertheless quite good: clean, relatively quiet if played at reasonable
levels, dynamic, transparent, dimensional, and alive. Several of the loudest
passages seemed to me to distort slightly, but it may have been my imagination.

Although I still
prefer the more natural and resonant Concertgebouw acoustics, I cannot deny the
sheer spectacle of the Boston recording in this JVC remastering. Whether it’s
worth its high asking price, that’s for you to decide. I can tell you, though,
that if Monteux interests you in this particular material, you can still find
it from RCA at a modest price in a regular edition (which also includes Symphonies 5 and 6). However, if you want No.
4 alone and remastered to audiophile standards, this JVC product looks like
the only way to go. Just don’t complain afterwards about the cost; you probably
wouldn’t want it any other way.

Twenty-odd years ago, there was no doubt who the greatest
tenors in the world were. Domingo, Pavarotti, and Carreras were riding so high
that they united as The Three Tenors, further solidifying their dominance in
the operatic world. Before them, we had tenors like Carlo Bergonzi, Giuseppe Di
Stefano, Nicolai Gedda, and Mario Del Monaco, the fellows I grew up with in the
old LP days. Now, things are different. The record companies don’t seem to be
producing as many full-length operas as they used to, and there do not appear
to be any clear-cut kings of the hill in the world of tenors. So I suppose that
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann has as much a shot at the title as anyone.

His credentials: Kaufmann has a fine tenor voice, not
really a lyric tenor, but having more weight, something of a cross between a
spinto tenor and a dramatic tenor. He’s also blessed with handsome good looks,
with stylishly long hair on his head and a stylish stubble on his face. If this
were the Fifties, Hollywood would snatch him up for a romantic musical. As of
this writing, he is in his vocal prime, being about forty-four years old, he’s
been performing on the world stage since 1995, and he has over a dozen record
albums to his credit.

But does that make him the greatest tenor currently before
the public? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on your taste in tenors, I suppose.
Anyway, I don’t have nearly enough experience listening to opera to make any
fair evaluation of Kaufmann as a singer, so I’ll limit myself to some general
observations about the twelve Verdi selections he sings on this album. For
instance, it’s easy to hear the man’s voice has range, power, and flexibility.
It’s also easy to hear his voice is slightly coarser and deeper than a lot of
tenors; thus, the characterization above that he is more of a dramatic than a
lyric tenor. Nevertheless, it seems to work reasonably well in these arias,
despite their being in Italian and not the man’s native German. (Most of
Kaufmann’s early success has come in Wagner.) My only serious quibble is that
the program features mainly Verdi standards, things most of us, even we opera
novices, already have on disc by our own favorite tenors. I dunno; maybe this
collection will grow on me if I give it a chance. As it is, I’m not sure it
represents Kaufmann at his best.

So, the album begins with one of Verdi’s most recognizable
creations, “La donna e mobile” from Rigoletto,
which you can listen to below. It's a good song to begin the proceedings since
it's not only familiar, it has all the wham and pizzazz you could want. It's
the vocal equivalent of an overture, a curtain raiser, and Kaufmann belts it
out with authority.

Next up is a number more to my liking: "Celeste
Aida" from Aida, although for me
it still needs a lighter, airier touch. That said, Kaufmann produces some
welcome vocal contrasts, handling the piece neither too gently nor too
robustly.

To repeat, I know next to nothing about opera. Yet I sense
more of the baritone in Kaufmann's voice than the tenor. Not that this is a bad
thing. It demonstrates the man's vocal range, which is clearly quite wide and
stable.

And so it goes through the program, with selections from Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Trovatore, Luisa Miller, Simon Boccanegra,
Don Carlo, La Forza del Destino, I Masnadieri,
and Otello. There's quite a lot of
different material in here, familiar or not, and Kaufmann makes the best of it.
I wish I could say the same for the orchestral accompaniment, though, which
seems a bit thin and flabby to me.

Favorites? The aforementioned "Celeste Aida";
"Di quella pira" from Il
Trovatore, only because the piece is so ingrained in the basic repertoire,
and because Kaufmann carries it out with such theatrical flair; "Quandole
le sere al placido" from Luisa
Miller because it's so very romantic, and Kaufmann sings it with such
heartfelt enthusiasm; "Dio, che nell' alma infondere" from Don Carlo because Kaufmann's voice
sounds so good in combination with Franco Vassallo's baritone; and "Niun
me tema" from Otello because of
the passion Kaufmann expresses in these closing passages from the opera.

I think most folks are going to like what they hear on the
album. No doubt, it will please Kaufmann's fans. How much it may impress
die-hard opera lovers, however, I couldn't guess.

Sony Classical recorded Mr. Kaufmann at the Auditorium
Niccolo Paganini, Parma, Italy in March, 2013. The sound is big and bold, a lot
like Kaufmann's voice. The voice is well out front, clean and clear, with a
fine sense of bloom. The orchestral accompaniment seems to fade closer and
farther away with the changing dynamics, but it's not objectionable.
Occasionally, the voice tends to get a bit bright, almost harsh, like,
obviously, on big fortes and climaxes, but again this is not particularly
objectionable, and in any case some speaker systems may mitigate the situation.
In all, this is probably the kind of pop-like sound that most listeners expect,
and a sound that probably complements most home playback systems.

Here’s a clever, well-executed album with a clever, well-executed
plan. It juxtaposes two versions of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite on the same disc: the composer’s original 1892
version, performed by conductor Steven Richman and his sixty-piece Harmonie
Ensemble/New York, and a 1960 Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn jazz version
performed by a fourteen-piece jazz ensemble. The comparisons and, mainly,
contrasts make fascinating listening.

Of course, the Tchaikovsky original is so familiar, the
album’s producers probably needn’t have included it at all. Still, it’s nice to
have the original on hand to make instant comparisons, as I have done with the
brief excerpts below. Besides, the Harmonie Ensemble/New York play the original
so felicitously, it’s a pleasure to hear them perform it, no matter how many
other recordings of it you may have in your library.

So, first up is the original Nutcracker Suite, which Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893) extracted from his complete two-act ballet The Nutcracker. Interestingly, early audiences didn’t much cotton
to the ballet, but they did appreciate the twenty-odd minute suite, which in
turn led to today’s worldwide popularity of both the complete ballet and the
suite. Anyway, the suite contains eight movements: “Overture,” “March,” “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” “Russian
Dance,” “Arabian Dance,” “Chinese Dance,” “Dance of the Reed Flutes,” and
“Waltz of the Flowers.”

Maestro Steven Richman formed the Grammy-nominated
Harmonie Ensemble New York in 1979, and it now comprises over sixty or so
members, drawing its players from the best New York orchestras and jazz groups.
The Harmonie Ensemble/New York play with refinement, style, and élan. You'd be
hard pressed to find a better reading of the Nutcracker Suite than the one you find here. It's not only colorful
and exciting, it sounds as precisely articulated as any you'll come across.
Along with its exacting execution, you get Harmonia Mundi's usual lifelike
sound, making it a double success.

The real attraction of the album, though, is the jazz
version of the Nutcracker Suite
devised by jazz greats Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Ellington once said
"There are simply two kinds of music: good music and the other kind."
This is good music.

Ironically, Ellington never much cared for the work he did
on Nutcracker, never playing it in
concert. Since its debut, fortunately, plenty of other people have played and
recorded it, none of them any better than what we have here. I suppose it helps
that Ellington wrote mainly dance numbers, and Tchaikovsky's piece is a ballet.
The melodies flow out of the jazz ensemble with an easy feel for the manner of
Tchaikovsky yet in an unmistakable Ellington style. It's the kind of
traditional jazz arrangement that at once makes it appealing to jazz fans as
well as to classical-music afficionados. In other words, it's accessible to
just about everyone.

The Ensemble play it beautifully, too, every member of the
group contributing his own lasting impression. I especially enjoyed Bill
Easley's clarinet solos, Lew Tabackin's tenor sax, and Victor Lewis's work on
drums. But for that matter, the whole ensemble swings. Nice work. A
light-cardboard slipcover completes the package.

Audio engineer Adam Abeshouse recorded the music at Avatar
Studios, New York City and at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Mary
Flagler Cary Hall, New York City in 2010 and 2011. The sound has a nice zippy
ring to it, with just the right amount of ambient bloom to make it sound real.
An extended frequency response, particularly in the treble, and a clean, clear
midrange help, too. While the orchestra doesn't display a lot of depth, it is wide
and fairly dynamic, with a pleasant air around the instruments. The jazz
ensemble is even more transparent, the smaller group coming through with great
impact and sharpness of detail.

To hear a couple of brief comparison excerpts from this
album, click here:

Steven Fox, hailed as "one of New York City's most
promising young conductors," (WQXR) joins Philharmonia Baroque for a
program including rarely-heard works by the first generation of Russian
composers. Four concerts take place at San Francisco's SFJAZZ Center (November
15), First Congregational Church, Berkeley (November 16 & 17), and the
Center for Performing Arts, Atherton (November 19). Tickets are priced from $25
to $93.

Although Mikhail Glinka has often been called the father
of Russian music, he was hardly the first Russian to compose in classical
forms. This program includes seminal works from the pre-Glinka generation,
including Maksym Berezovsky's Symphony in
C major, believed to be among the first Russian symphonies; Yevstigney
Fomin's Dance of the Blessed Spirits
from Orpheus, one of the first operas
written in Russian; and suites from Dmitry Bortniansky's operas Alcide and Le fils rival.

Tanya Tomkins --whose recording of the Bach Cello Suites was hailed as
"genius" by Gramophone
magazine--joins Philharmonia as soloist in Johann Facius's Concerto for Violoncello in D minor. And Glinka, with whom most
histories of Russian music begin, is featured with three arias sung by the
English soprano Anna Dennis, who makes her Bay Area debut.

Recognized for his leadership in returning the first
generation of Russian classical composers to prominence, Steven Fox is artistic
director of the New York Clarion Society and the founder of Musica Antiqua in
Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Friday, November 15 at 8:00 PM

SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco, CA

Saturday, November 16 at 8:00 PM

First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA

Sunday, November 17 at 7:30 PM

First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA

Tuesday, November 19 at 8:00 PM

The Center for Performing Arts, Atherton, CA

Tickets are priced $25 to $93, available through City Box
Office: www.cityboxoffice.com or call (415) 392-4400.

--Ben Casement-Stoll, Philharmonia Baroque

AOP Chosen to
Participate in Professional Development Program Led by Brooklyn Academy of
Music (BAM) and the Devos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center

American Opera Projects presents the world-premiere opera
"As One" at the BAM Fisher in 2015.

The Brooklyn Academy Of Music (BAM) has announced American
Opera Projects (AOP) among the participants in the BAM Professional Development
Program (BAM PDP) led by BAM and the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the
Kennedy Center. The companies for this session are of mixed disciplines ranging
from opera to theater to dance. AOP's participation in the program will
culminate in 2015 with the World Premiere of As One, an original music theater
work to be created by composer Laura Kaminsky, librettist Mark Campbell, and
filmmaker Kimberly Reed.

The BAM PDP is a 9-month program that utilizes the
strengths of both institutions to provide professional development training and
deeply discounted theater and rehearsal studio rental to an annual selection of
qualifying Brooklyn non-profit arts organizations. Through the program,
supported by Brooklyn Community Foundation and The New York Community Trust,
BAM and the DeVos Institute strive to help arts organizations expand their
skill base, increase their institutional capacity, and build necessary
foundations for their long-term success. The second cycle of the program began
this fall and culminates with each Brooklyn-based company presenting a
self-funded production in the BAM Fisher Fishman Space within the year
following the training portion.

As One, AOP's world premiere production for the BAM PDP,
chronicles a transgender person as she emerges into harmony with herself and
the world around her are portrayed with compassion, candor, and humor. The work is being written expressly for
acclaimed singers mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraf, who
will share the role of the protagonist. They will be joined by the renowned
Miró Quartet. An interactive film will be created by Kimberly Reed that serves
as the production's background. As One will be AOP's second world premiere at
the BAM Fisher following Out Cold/Zippo Songs (Phil Kline, composer) which was
presented as part of BAM's 30th Next Wave Festival in October 2012.

On November 21-24, 2013, 19-year-old pianist/composer
Conrad Tao will premiere his new composition The World Is Very Different Now, performed by the Dallas Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Jaap van Zweden. The piece is part of a concert
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963, and The
World Is Very Different Now was commissioned especially for the event by
the DSO with support by the National Endowment for the Arts and TACA.

This past June, Conrad released his debut album Voyages on Warner Classics (formerly EMI
Classics), and oversaw the successful launch of his own UNPLAY Festival, a
three-day event which he conceived and curated.

The title of Tao’s The
World Is Very Different Now is taken from a speech given by President Kennedy.
The composer explains: “The World Is Very
Different Now is ultimately about memory. I wanted to explore the way this
assassination was an event associated with a myriad of specific and individual
memories; it is one of those epoch-making events where everyone remembers
‘where they were.’ Those hyper-real, unique memories intersect with historical
narrative, the writing of which is in many ways a process of memory-formation
as well. I wanted to write a piece that explored the reverberations of these
many memories and experiences. I was curious to see if those remains could
articulate something interesting, and at least a little unfamiliar, about both
the assassination and the quote from JFK's inaugural address that gives the
work its title.”

The concert is sponsored by Bickel & Brewer Foundation
and also features Darius Milhaud’s short work Murder of a Great Chief of State, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, and violinist Joshua Bell performing the Violin Concerto by Sibelius.

Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY)
presents the New York City debut of Ensemble: Périphérie, a bold new ensemble
created to invite audiences to recognize and be stimulated by the music of our
time. Ensemble: Périphérie’s program will feature music by founding composers
Joseph Dangerfield and Luke Dahn, as well as Louis Karchin, Irina Dubkova, and
David Gompper - all written between 2001 and 2013. The concert takes place on
Saturday, October 26 at 2:00 p.m. at Weill Recital Hall.

Ensemble: Périphérie is inspired by the great French
composer Henri Dutilleux, who died this past May, who said: “For me the only
new music would be music that a composer of genius successfully created on the
periphery of all the movements of our time and in the face of all current
slogans and manifestos.” Comprised of a group of like-minded artists from
across the country, Ensemble: Périphérie intends to commission new works from
both emerging and established composers. The core ensemble, appearing with
DCINY, includes Charles Akert, cello; Ginny Armstrong, percussion; Martha
Councell–Vargas, flute; Michelle Crouch, soprano; Ann DuHamel, piano; Stephen
Fine, viola; Yasmin Flores, clarinet; violinist Tricia Park; with Joseph
Dangerfield conducting selected works.

The program includes Calder
Cadences (2012/13), inspired by works by sculptor Alexander Calder, by Luke
Dahn (b. 1976). Dahn, whose music has been performed by groups such as the
Moscow Conservatory Studio for New Music, matches the four movements to four of
Calder’s major works. Described by The New Yorker as a composer of
“fearless eloquence,” Louis Karchin’s (b.1951) music has been recently heard at
Tanglewood’s Contemporary Music Festival. His 2012 work, Four Songs on Poems of Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Prize-winning Irish
poet, features soprano Michele Crouch.
Widely-performed Russian composer Irina Dubkova’s (b. 1957) I Hear the Sound that has Fallen Silent
(2005), is part of a Triptych entitled In
the Soft Moonlight. Butterfly Dance
by David Gompper (b. 1954) is based on an American Hopi Indian tune. Gompper's
compositions have been performed at major venues from New York to Vienna. The Wild, by Joseph Dangerfield (b.
1977), based on the Barnett Newman abstract expressionist painting of the same
name, is being premiered by the ensemble on tour this year. Described by Fanfare as “highly compelling” and
“exuberant,” Dangerfield’s music has been heard internationally. A Fulbright
Scholar to the Russian Federation and the Netherlands, Dangerfield is a
recipient of the Aaron Copland Award (2010), among other honors. For more information:
www.ensembleperipherie.com.

Crissy Broadcast in
San Francisco: A Spatial Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians on Crissy Field

Lisa Bielawa, composer & Artistic Director

Free Performances: October 26 at 10am and 4pm &
October 27 at 12 p.m., Crissy Field, San Francisco, CA

Newly added: Roundtable Discussions on October 26

1-2 p.m.: “Orchestras and Engagement”

2-3 p.m.: “The Making of Airfield Broadcasts”

Chapel at Fort Mason Center, off Bay Street at Franklin,
San Francisco

Free and Open to the Public

Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Crissy Broadcast turns Crissy
Field in San Francisco, part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area,
into a vast musical canvas in three free performances on Saturday, October 26
at 10-11 a.m. and 4-5 p.m., and Sunday, October 27 at 12-1 p.m. The hour-long
massive, spatial symphony will involve more than 800 musicians, including
orchestras, bands, choruses, and experimental new music groups, performing for
thousands of music lovers (and unwitting park-goers). In addition, two
Roundtable Discussions, free and open to the public, will be held on Saturday,
October 26 at 1-2pm (Orchestras and Engagement) and 2-3pm (The Making of Airfield
Broadcasts) at Fort Mason Center’s Chapel, located off of Bay Street at
Franklin.

A diverse roster of professional, student, and amateur
performing ensembles will bring Crissy Broadcast to life. The groups
participating include the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (Crissy
Broadcast Lead Professional Ensemble), San Francisco Girls Chorus, San
Francisco Symphony’s Community of Music Makers, Chamber Chorus of the
University of California, Golden Gate Philharmonic, Great Wall Youth Orchestra
of Laney College, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Lowell High School
Orchestra, Aptos Middle School Band, Presidio Middle School Panther Band,
Sacred Heart Cathedral Orchestra, Berkeley High Band and Orchestra, and the
Ruth Asawa/San Francisco School of the Arts.

Crissy Broadcast is part of San Francisco native Lisa
Bielawa’s Airfield Broadcasts project. In May, she created Tempelhof Broadcast
in Berlin on the historic airfield-turned-public-park Tempelhof Field in
partnership with the Berlin Parks Department (Grün Berlin GmbH) and under the
patronage of the U.S. Embassy. Approximately 5,000 people attended the three
performances of Tempelhof Broadcast. Die Welt am Sonntag reported: "The result . . . was impressive. A loosely knit
texture of sound, oscillating between classic and modern music, noise and
avant-garde. The audience which happened to be caught in the performance by
accident was compelled; throughout the whole piece groups of listeners strolled
back and forth between the individual ensembles. They paused, kept a respectful
distance, or came closer, drawn by their curiosity . . . Finally, all kinds of
people mingled together, with dogs or ice-cream cones, with rollerblades and
skateboards, moving among the musicians."

The goal of Airfield Broadcasts is to interpret and
celebrate public spaces, allowing listeners to draw their own meaning and
experience from them. Bielawa hopes that the project will have a palpable and
sustainable impact on the city. She says, “I would like to see Airfield Broadcasts
bring about new partnerships, new vitality, and new relationships between arts
and civic institutions, between different generations and economic strata,
between arts or music lovers and totally non-arts-identified park-goers
enjoying a surprise encounter with music as a ‘happening’ in the middle of
their familiar and beloved city.”

Marc Kasky, Director for Civic Engagement for Crissy
Broadcasts, explains further, “As these events unfold in parks that have
complex histories, one purpose of the project is to interpret these sites – to
help people get a sense of the unique attributes of their own urban
environment, and the breadth and inclusivity of the culture of these places.”

--Christina Jensen PR

American Bach
Soloists Complete Their 24th Consecutive Season

On September 21, ABS held its eleventh annual gala,
“Silver Soirée” celebrating twenty-five years of American Bach Soloists’
continued presence in the field of early-music across Northern California. This
year’s event was co-chaired by former board member Jan Goldberg and Kaneez
Munjee, along with Development Consultant Camille Reed, Development & Donor
Relations Associate Carmen Flórez-Mansi, and Executive Director Don Scott
Carpenter.

Mark your calendars now! December 3 is the official
release date of ABS’s newest CD release: Handel: Laudate pueri Dominum
featuring Mary Wilson. This recording, ABS’s first since 2009, celebrates the
joyous meetings of American Bach Soloists, under the direction of Jeffrey
Thomas, with one of their most cherished collaborators, the sensational
American soprano Mary Wilson.

December with ABS

December will be a busy month for ABS! On December 11
& 12, ABS presents its annual performances of Handel’s Messiah at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. On Saturday, December
14, the group returns to St Stephens for An ABS Christmas. Wrapping up the
intense schedule of events, ABS will perform Messiah at the Mondavi Center in Davis on the afternoon of December
15. It will be an exciting, music filled time and we look forward to seeing
you!

Introducing Carmen Flórez-Mansi

We are pleased to welcome Carmen Flórez-Mansi to the ABS
family, as she will be working with development and donor relations. Carmen
joined the team shortly before the Silver Soirée gala and contributed greatly
to the success of the event. She is a native of New Mexico and holds degrees
from Immaculata College in Philadelphia with additional study at the University
of New Mexico. Carmen lives in Napa with her husband, Tom, and her two sons,
Thomasluke and Estevan.

With a program of Romantic masterpieces including Modest
Mussorgsky’s imposing Pictures at an
Exhibition and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano
Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (“Moonlight”), Grammy
Award-winning pianist Paul Lewis returns to Cal Performances on Sunday,
November 3, at 3:00 p.m. in Hertz Hall. Lewis last performed at Cal
Performances in 2010, devoting his program to the late piano music of Franz Schubert.
With his return visit, Lewis moves more deeply into Romantic pianism. His
program also includes Beethoven’s Piano
Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27, No.
1; three late piano works by Franz Liszt; and Ferruccio Busoni’s
transcriptions of two Chorale Preludes
by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Lewis is the winner of three Gramophone Awards and is internationally regarded as one of the
leading pianists of his generation. In 2010 Lewis became the first pianist to
perform the complete Beethoven piano concertos in one season. In 2011, he
embarked on a two-year project to perform all of Schubert’s late piano pieces.
His award-winning discography for Harmonia Mundi includes the complete
Beethoven piano sonatas and concertos, as well as the major works from
Schubert’s last six years. Gramophone
said of the recordings, “Time and time again you marvel at the confidence and
sureness of Lewis’s playing, combined with the finesse and musicality he has
always displayed. It’s the kind of playing, in fact, where comparisons cease to
matter.”

Lewis’s recital career takes him all over the world to
perform in venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera
House, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Toppan and Oji halls in
Tokyo, Chan Center Vancouver, and the Royal Festival and Wigmore halls in
London, where he has performed more than 60 times alone. He has collaborated
with many of the world’s leading conductors, including Sir Colin Davis, Bernard
Haitink, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Sir Mark Elder, and performed with such
orchestras as the London, Boston, and Chicago symphonies, the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Oslo and Los Angeles philharmonics. Lewis has
also toured with the Mahler and Australian chamber orchestras.

Lewis studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel. Along
with his wife, the Norwegian cellist Bjørg Lewis, he is artistic director of
Midsummer Music, an annual chamber music festival held in Buckinghamshire,
England.

Ticket information:

Tickets for Paul Lewis on Sunday, November 3, at 3:00 p.m.
in Hertz Hall start at $32.00 and are subject to change. Tickets are available
through the Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall; at (510) 642-9988; at
www.calperformances.org; and at the door. Half-price tickets are available for
UC Berkeley students. For more information about tickets and discounts, go to
www.calperformances.org/buy/discounts.php or call (510) 642-9988.

Throw away that raw vegan flaxseed cookie and indulge in
something more... sensuous. Discordant musical passages explore the boundaries
of tonality and represent the restless conscience while others caress the
senses with their soft waves of melody. Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila envelops us in decadent
sound as the temptress Dalila lures Samson away from his people. In Puccini's Suor Angelica, the nun's dulcet melodies
embody her enchantment with worldly pleasures. Be transported by contemporary composer
Saariaho, who stretches the limits of tradition with her eerie music that draws
you in like a moth to the flame. Go ahead, have your cake and eat it too.

West Edge Opera announces additional singers and program
information for "Something Wicked," its inaugural concert, on
Saturday, October 26 at 7:30 pm, of a series of holiday-themed presentations at
the Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia Avenue in Piedmont.

Previously announced singers Eileen Meredith and Benjamin
Bongers will be joined by mezzo-soprano Donna Olson and bass-baritone Wayne
Wong for a program to include selections from The Tales of Hoffmann, Sweeney
Todd, Faust, Il Trovatore, Un Ballo in
Maschera, Ruddigore, and more –
all choices that revolve around the supernatural, weird, devilish, or creepy
elements of the plots. Pianist Kristin Pankonin accompanies the singers.

Tickets, at $25 for adults and $15 for kids under 18,
available online at www.westedgeopera,org or by telephone at (510) 841-1903. Each
ticket includes chocolate and a glass of wine or a soft drink. For more
information, go to West Edge Opera’s website at www.westedgeopera.org.

There may be a few names here with which you’re
unfamiliar. Let’s begin with Christopher Rouse (b. 1949). He’s a prominent
American composer currently teaching at the Juilliard School, who has seen his
music recorded by nearly a dozen record labels. Katherine Bryan is the
Principal Flute of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and for the past
decade or so has also been pursuing a successful solo career in the concert
hall and on recordings. Jac van Steen (b. 1956) is a Dutch conductor who has
been the Music Director of Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, a faculty member
at the Royal Conservatory of music and dance in The Hague, the Chief Conductor
of the Nürnberger Symphoniker, the Music Director of the Neues Berliner
Kammerorchester, the Music Director of Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, the
Chief Conductor of the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Chief Conductor of the
Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC
National Orchestra of Wales, and currently the General Music Director of the
Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra. As for Linn Records, you may know their
high-end audio products, especially the famous Linn-Sondek turntables, more
than you know their recordings, but I can assure you the recordings are every
bit as good as their turntables, amps, preamps, speakers, and the like.

So, the present album comes with a prestigious pedigree.

Things begin with Rouse’s Flute Concerto (1993), which he wrote as the continuation of a
series of pieces based on deaths that profoundly influenced him. The Concerto was Rouse’s response to the
death of a two-year-old English boy murdered by two older boys. The Concerto is sweet and largely melodic,
Rouse being something of a Romantic, and it’s written in an unusual (well,
unusual for a concerto) five-movement arrangement. The work appears to have now
become a part of the general flute repertoire, meaning that if you are a
flutist (or flautist, if you prefer), you will probably perform and maybe
record the piece at some point in your career.

Ms. Bryan is a flutist of the first order, her playing
sensitive and flowing. She handles the Rouse Concerto in a like manner. The flute enters almost immediately,
wistful and slightly melancholy, Ms. Bryan giving it an achingly beautiful
turn. Interestingly, each of the five movements provides the listener with a
different mood, so after the brief, slow introspection of the first movement,
handled mostly by the flute, we get a stricter tone in the second movement, in
which the orchestra plays a much bigger part. Still, Ms. Bryan's flute dances
along within the proceedings at a fairly good clip, the music building to
something of a frenzy, I assume representing the boy's death. The central and
longest movement, marked Elegia, is a
serious lament on the senseless killing. Again, we hear a warm, fluid voice
from Ms. Bryan's flute as the melody takes flight and hovers for its few
minutes' duration, as the whole thing builds to a huge climax before falling
off into quiet. The fourth movement is a Scherzo,
utilizing a number of percussive effects to punctuate the flute, and it serves
to highlight Ms. Bryan's skillful playing talents. The final movement provides
another slow, lyrical, spiritual note, much as the first movement had, but
sounding more Celtic in its mood and phrasing.

Ms. Byran helps us understand why Rouse's Flute Concerto has entered the basic
repertoire; it's sincere, direct, and moving. The composer says about the
piece, "In a world of daily horrors too numerous and enormous to comprehend
en masse, it seems that only isolated, individual tragedies serve to sensitise
us to the potential harm man can do to his fellow. I followed this case closely
during the time I was composing my concerto and was unable to shake the horror
of these events from my mind."

The disc’s accompanying works are no less accomplished in
Ms. Bryan's hands. The Concerto for Flute
and Orchestra by Jacques Ibert (1890-1962) presents a contrast to the
more-solemn Rouse piece. The Ibert is lighter, livelier, and more humorous, yet
it offers Ms. Bryan an equal challenge in virtuosic demands. The album
concludes with two short solo works, the first, Syrinx, by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and the second, Ballade, by Frank Martin (1890-1974),
both of which Ms. Bryan plays with a strong emotional fluency, always graceful
and poignant. As with the entire program, they afford the flutist ample
opportunity to show off her versatility to good effect.

Linn Records producer and engineer Phillip Hobbs recorded
this hybrid two-channel stereo and multichannel SACD in October 2012 at Henry
Wood Hall, Glasgow, UK. The sound in the two-channel SACD mode to which I
listened is wonderfully airy, focused, and glowing, everything you'd expect
from an audiophile recording. Ms. Bryan’s flute appears almost in the room with
the listener, the orchestra realistically providing the needed support at an
appropriately lifelike distance behind her. When the orchestra does come into
its own, it does so with a commendable transparency, yet there is always a
compensating ambient bloom from the hall that mitigates any possible hardness
or harshness that the clarity could bring with it. The orchestral depth is
good, the width (or spread) is natural for the moderate miking distance
involved, and the dynamic range, frequency response, and transient impact are
all exemplary.

The music of Maurice
Ravel is among the most poetic, imaginative, impressionistic ever written. It
has the capacity to touch one’s soul as well as stir one’s blood.
Unfortunately, while I found Telarc’s sound among the best afforded this
composer, Maestro Jarvi’s interpretations left me largely unmoved.

Things begin with
the Daphnis et ChloeSuite No. 2, which gets off to so quiet
a start I wondered if my equipment was faulty. Then I realized that the output
level of the disc was lower than usual, and I turned up the sound. Yet despite
Jarvi’s delicate touch and lyrical vision of the work, plus Telarc’s patented
big bass drum and deep low-end, none of the reading struck me as unusually
inspired so much as unusually slow. The Pavane
pour une infante defunte, on the other hand, appeared to move along at too
brisk and lighthearted a pace to convey as much of the piece’s solemnity as I
thought it deserved. I hear little of the radiance or sensuality in it that I
hear under some other conductors. Nevertheless, I can easily understand how
other listeners might find both the Pavane
and the Daphnis performances
sensitive and moving. La Valse fared
better for me, though, nicely capturing the baleful irony of Ravel’s
anti-waltz. I liked it a lot, and if it weren’t for the price of the disc, I
could recommend a purchase for just this piece.

However, I found
little joy in the Mother Goose songs
that followed La Valse, finding them
ofttimes more mundane than colorful; perhaps, however, this may have been a
result of my own overexposure to the tales rather than any obvious deficiencies
on Jarvi’s part. Then, the album concludes with the celebrated Bolero, likely Ravel’s most famous work.
Yet, here, too, I found things slightly lacking. Bolero should start
slowly and repeat itself as it builds in intensity. What I found was that since
Jarvi takes it at a healthy clip to begin with, the only thing it does is get
louder. Ravel recommended about seventeen minutes for the piece. The four or
five comparison discs I had on hand from Dutoit, Cluytens, Simon, and others,
took from fifteen to seventeen minutes each. Jarvi covers the ground in a
little over thirteen minutes, with a steadiness of rhythm that does no favors
to the music.

Although Jarvi’s
interpretations are earnest and occasionally elevated, with so much competition
on the shelf for my Ravel listening, I doubt that I shall be coming back too
often to the Cincinnati conductor in this material.

The major
compensating feature of the collection is Telarc’s sound, which is luxurious in
the extreme. The sonics are velvety smooth, well spread out, and nicely imaged,
with a bass response to shake the rafters. The Telarc engineers again produce a
recording worth listening to for the sake of its audio alone.

Have you ever wondered which pieces of today’s music
people might still be listening to in a hundred, two hundred, three hundred
years? Probably not much of modern pop music; I doubt that Justin Bieber,
hip-hop, rap, heavy metal, and the like will survive. Maybe a few folk tunes
already a century old. But classical music is another story. Much of Beethoven
will endure, Mozart, Bach, and, of course, there will always be 800 new
versions of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
available, no doubt played on instruments unknown to us at the present. Which
brings us to the question of Mendelssohn. Possibly a few of his chamber pieces
will continue; most likely the Third
and Fourth Symphonies; certainly A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And probably
the Violin Concerto, here rendered
quite elegantly by violinist Rachel Barton Pine, conductor Christoph-Mathias
Mueller, and the Gottinger Symphony Orchestra of Germany.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) premiered the Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 in
1845, making it his last big-scale orchestral work. Audiences pretty much loved
it from the start, and it has remained among the most-popular staples of the
violin repertoire ever since, right up there with the violin concertos of
Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. In Mendelssohn’s
concerto the violin enters immediately, without introduction or fanfare, and
Ms. Pine's interpretation of the piece is sweetly gentle. She does not race
through the music to prove her energy and enthusiasm to the listener. Instead,
she appears to view the work as an extension of the Midsummer Night's Dream music, the entire concerto sprinkled with
fairy dust. She dances lightly through the notes, virtuosic, to be sure, yet
with a tender, sympathetic step. When the music calls for big outbursts,
certainly she's ready as the occasion demands. However, this is essentially a
sensitive, contemplative account of the score.

The second-movement Andante
is likewise sweet and gentle, with a touch of wistfulness, maybe nostalgia,
thrown in. Ms. Pine never makes it sound sentimental, though, so we can't get
too weepy-eyed over it. Rather, she keeps it grounded, simple, direct, and
beautifully effective. Then, in the finale, she goes out with an appropriately
cheerful, sprightly bounce, wonderfully happy and entertaining. This is
Mendelssohn's music as we've always thought about it, frothy and enchanting.

The second longer item on the disc is the Violin Concerto in D minor, WoO 23 by
Robert Schumann (1810-1856). It’s hardly a major repertoire item, being among
Schumann’s final works and one that never saw a performance until some eighty
years after the composer’s death. Ms. Pine admits in a booklet note that she
had never played the music before Maestro Mueller persuaded her to learn and
record it here.

While the Schumann is a fairly long and fairly dreary
piece, Ms. Pine gives it her best shot. The soloist and conductor make some
minor adjustments to the score, which they believe Schumann and the
composition's dedicatee, violinist Joseph Joachim, would have approved. And
there is no denying that Ms. Pine puts in a heartfelt performance. It's just
that it's still a dour piece of music, perhaps reflecting the composer's
deteriorating state of mind at the time of its composition. Yet there are
sections of soaring lyricism that transcend the work's otherwise relentlessly
stern countenance. Moreover, Cedille's lovely recording quality further makes
Ms. Pine's interpretation a pleasurable experience.

Filling out the program are Beethoven's two little Romances for Violin and Orchestra, No. 1 in G major and No. 2 in F major, both published between
1803 and 1805 and coming slightly before the composer’s more-famous Violin Concerto in D major from 1806.
Beethoven scored both Romances
relatively lightly, and in Ms. Pine's hands they come off well, being typically
melodic, occasionally pensive, and always flattering.

Producer Steven Epstein and engineer Bill Maylone recorded
the music for Cedille in 24-bit digital at Stadthalle Gottingen, Germany in
August 2012. Like most Cedille recordings, this one is quite good. The sound is big, warm, spacious, and
realistic. Orchestral depth is good, too, dynamics are reasonably wide, and
definition, while not of the kind that might impress some audiophiles with its
transparency, is lifelike, with a soft, ambient glow around the instruments.
Ms. Pine's violin appears nicely centered in front of the orchestra but not so
far forward as to be unnatural.

Finally, with a generous seventy-one minutes of playing
time, the disc provides not only good interpretations and good sound but plenty
of both. For me, it was worth a listen and will continue to be worth a listen
for a long time to come.

John J. Puccio

About the Author

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on The Big John and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job.

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to pucciojj@gmail.com.